Super-Hacker Builds Atari 2600 Emulator… In Minecraft?!

SethBling, a YouTuber known for pulling off crazy hacks of popular games, might have outdone himself yet again with this one: He’s gotten an Atari 2600 emulator running in Minecraft.

Let’s say that you’re a normal person and so you have no idea what this means. An emulator is a software program that lets one computer act like another computer. That’s how we can play Super Mario Bros. on an NES Classic; the hardware is pretending to be an NES. Minecraft, the block-building creativity game, has an item called a Command Block, which allows players to enter and execute rudimentary code instructions. SethBling strung enough of these together to create a program that acts like the 1977 Atari 2600 game machine, which is a rather simple computer.

Of course, turning on an Atari with no game in the cartridge slot produces a whole lot of nothing, so you need game data. SethBling recreated the ones and zeroes of three Atari game ROM files—Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong—using standard inert Minecraft blocks. The command blocks read the data by scanning down each row of bricks, execute the code, and then as if by magic Pac-Man appears in the Minecraft world. He can even edit the system’s RAM on the fly… with a pickaxe.

The emulator runs at a brisk speed of about 60 frames every… four hours. But that’s okay, because there’s no controller, so it’s not playable, either. It was only created to show that it could be done, not to any functional purpose. In other words: art.

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MassEffectAndromeda Finally Has a Release Date

Mass Effect Andromeda, the long-awaited fourth installment in Bioware and EA’s space-faring, alien-smoothing series of role-playing games, finally has a release date. Coming for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, it’ll be out March 21, 2017 in the United States and March 23 in Europe.

Andromeda will feature the protagonist, a new character in the series named Ryder, exploring the eponymous galaxy on behalf of the human race, seeking planets to colonize 600 years after the tumultuous ending of Mass Effect 3. Beyond that and a few brief snippets of gameplay, not a lot has been revealed about the game since its official announcement in 2013; it’s certainly been more muted than most major game rollouts. EA promised in their announcement that we’d see more of the game at the Consumer Electronics Show later this week, and then we’ll see if the Andromeda Galaxy holds any promise come March.

Watch David Tennant Sing the DuckTales Theme Song

When Disney announced the DuckTales reboot in February 2015, the studio had no idea what world that wily group of waterfowl would be entering into. But sometimes, we get the industrialist aquatic bird reboots we need exactly when we need them. The new DuckTales is coming—the time is now.

This morning, Disney announced the ridiculously strong voice cast for the reboot (the original cartoon went off the air in 1990) by releasing a video of the actors singing the show’s earworm theme song. The Duck family is a murderers’ row of delightful TV weirdos—Danny Pudi (Abed from Community), Ben Schwartz (Jean-Ralphio from Parks and Rec), and Bobby Moynihan (Saturday Night Live) will play the ducklings Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Meanwhile, David Tennant (Doctor Who and Jessica Jones) will play the richest duck on earth, Scrooge McDuck. And SNL-er Beck Bennett and Kate Micucci from Raising Hope also will voice cartoon lake birds when the show premiers in summer 2017.

How AMonsterCalls Turned Liam Neeson Into a Giant Tree

In A Monster Calls a young boy named Conor (Lewis MacDougall) makes friends with a mysterious being that looks like a giant tree. That “monster,” played by Liam Neeson, then guides Conor as he copes with the illness of his mother (Rogue One’s Felicity Jones) and strict rule of his grandmother (Sigourney Weaver). Being a central figure in the film (his name is right there in the title!), he gets a lot of screen time. And being a walking bundle of roots, he had to be created almost entirely with practical effects and CGI. Some 45 minutes of A Monster Calls, out December 23, contain visual effects and a lot of them required Neeson giving a motion-capture performance. “I was involved with the motion capture for essentially two weeks,” Neeson says, “and most of my scenes were acting with Lewis.” Find out how the movie’s VFX team brought it all together in the video above.

The New TheFateoftheFurious Trailer Will Get Your Motor Running

It’s been almost two years since we’ve had a Fast and Furious movie—which is way too long to go without the series’ signature cuckoo-puff gumbo made up of improbable car chases, super punch-outs, and repeated reminders of the importance of family. Luckily, the first trailer for next summer’s The Fate of the Furious has arrived, and not only does it reunite your favorite FFers—including Vin Diesel as Dom, Dwayne Johnson as Hobbs, and Michelle Rodriguez as Letty—it also features new recruit Charlize Theron, who likely arrived to the set on their first day, saw a cake from Vin that said WELCOME TO THE FAMILY in lime-green icing, and thought, “Yeesh, he really doubles-down on this stuff, doesn’t he?” Of course, the most important element of this Fate of the Furious sneak-peek is the stunts, which look to more physics- and logic-defying than ever before, with lots of snowmobile mayhem and four-wheeled explosions. We’ll find out just how faster and furious-er and family-er it all gets when The Fate of the Furious opens in April.